Futures End
Futures End was a quest undertaken by Terry McGinnis to prevent the End Future. A time travel mission, McGinnis travelled back to the year 2019, years after the creation of Brother Eye. Upon arriving, the decision was made between McGinnis and ALFRED to keep the sentient satellite in the dark. The buildup to the quest was larger than any other conflict in the history of Prime Earth, making it one of the most important quests ever initiated. What truly made the quest as important as it was, however, was that it raised the question of what it truly meant to be a superhero. Going down to the difference in the approach on how to handle Earth 2 integration from Mr. Terrific and Green Arrow and all the way to Shazam taking on the role of Superman to make sure people would always feel safe, Futures End was the one mission that truly affected the core of the universe, with the threads that led up to it starting all the way from the beginning of the world. Background The machinations of the quest started with the end of the modern timeline and the creation of Earth 0 by way of the Flashpoint Timeline. By the workings of the Flash and Pandora, the timeline was fixed and the entire Multiverse was changed. When they finished their corrections, Merlin was born at the birth of the universe. Destined to age backwards, he helped the Demon Knights debut to protect King Arthur during the Battle of Avalon. After the battle, the group known as Stormwatch was created by Arthur to protect the Earth against the malignant force known as the Colony of the Collector of Worlds, whose noble intentions gave way to a malignant nature. When the Superman debuted almost a thousand years later, the Collector arrived to initiate the Terminaut Invasion. The failure of the invasion resulted in the creation of Brainiac, a far more malignant and intelligent collector. Stormwatch did not act against the Collector during the Terminaut Invasion because they realized that the true Collector was simply acting through an agent, Brainwyrm. They could not anticipate, however, that Superman would manage to defeat the Collector entirely. Nonethless, with the threat they were created to stop now identified as Brainiac, Stormwatch began to prepare to find a way to stop it when the time came. With the metahuman population rising, the Batman and Mr. Terrific created the satellite Brother I to monitor the superhuman populace. The satellite gained relative sentiency and went rogue and became Brother Eye, although the heroes managed to expel it temporarily, it returned to Earth. There it ended up manipulating Project Cadmus and Kevin Kho, eventually receiving a new programmer and using it to threaten the Batman before disappearing. Brainiac, having had manipulated the Psi War on Earth, later returned, vying for control of the planet. Attacking, he initiated the largest battle the planet had seen at that point: the Battle of Earth, but was ultimately repulsed by Superman and thrown into a black hole. There, Brainiac was collected by the Brainiac God and placed in the Blood Moon. During both conflicts, Stormwatch was unable to attack their arch enemy, but during the latter Battle of Earth they recognized that Brainiac had acted as it's predecessor had: through a mere agent. Making amends with the Shadow Lords, who then became the Storm Lords, Stormwatch again began to prepare for the inevitable return of Brainiac. For years the Earth remained safe from Brother Eye, with it returning in time for the worst event the world had ever seen: the Earth 2 War. Nonethless, the world managed to stay safe from eye during the war as it was deactivated. After the Earth 2 War, Cadmus Island was set up by King Faraday, Mr. Terrific returned to Prime Earth and Brainiac again began to plot revenge by manipulating Terrific. Brother Eye, on the other hand, due to being compromised hacked into Cadmus Island for it's own safety after suffering disabling damage. Nonethless, it slowly began to hack into and bug Cadmus Island's systems so that it could one day bring order to the world. Prelude In 2048, the End Future had been realized as through his top agent Frankenstein, Brother Eye managed to turn most of the world's superhuman populace into cyborgs by using the virus known only as Nanotech Ebola. Sending the rest of the normal humans who were spared in turning the heroes into robots to detention camps, Brother Eye believed that it had finally brought order upon the world. The prelude to the mission was not so, as it consisted entirely of another mission in which Grifter and Amethyst would attempt to disable the Firestorm Battery. As the quest of Futures End as originally intended would have had Bruce Wayne go back in time seven years earlier than Terry did, the prelude was not an official part of the quest. Prior to the mission beginning, Bruce Wayne and Terry decided at one final desperate attempt at beating Brother Eye, unhooking him from the Firestorm Matrix. In the ruins of Central City, Frankenstein, the only remaining sentient agent of Brother Eye, killed the Flash. The Blue Beetle and John Stewart then acted as a diversion while Grifter and Amethyst attempted to unhook Brother Eye. However, Beetle and Stewart quickly fell to Brother Eye, with Grifter and Amethyst not being afforded enough time, dying soon after themselves as well. Realizing his plans to have failed, Bruce prepared to travel back in time to the year 2012 to prevent the rise of Brother Eye. However, when the Batcave was attacked by Brother Eye, Wayne was mortally wounded, forcing McGinnis to go back instead. However, as the time travel device was proportional to Wayne, McGinnis arrived five years too late, in the year 2018. Frankenstein then recovered the body of Bruce and sustained it to keep it alive. Then taking the Joker as well, he began to prepare the madman for surgery. Realizing that Bruce had sent an assassin back in time, Brother Eye revealed this knowledge to it's "father" Mr. Terrific, who was glad that this happened, but disappointed when he learned that Eye had forcefully extracted the knowledge from Bruce's mind in order to send it's own assassin back in time. Terrific, despite his age, then began to train, only to again be distrubed by Eye. Terrific was then brought to Eye's assassin: a horrific surgically created amalgamation of Bruce Wayne and the Joker. The Quest Even though the quest primarily revolved around Terry's quest to prevent the reign of Brother Eye from happening, there were several conflicts going on around the same time that keyed in to Terry's mission one way or another. Thus, they were technically considered a part of Terry's quest, even though they only began to converge in the second and third phases. Phase One Note, that all of the following parts of the first phase of Futures End, whilst occuring simultaneously to each other, were separate. While they did intersect with each other at certain points, for the most part, the first phase of the quest consisted of mostly separate threats. In the following phases, the threats and heroes faced remained separate from one another, seemingly unrelated. However, they set the stage for the second and third phases and as such, only the parts Infiltration and The Investigation had altered the future due to Terry's interactions with the heroes and villains present in both parts. Other parts continued to go on as the future had originally intended. Infiltration: ' * Understanding that because he was unable to stop Brother Eye's creation he would have to keep the satellite silent, McGinnis fought off the cyborg that had followed him back. Shutting it down, storing it in a shopping cart, Terry tried to infiltrate the Terrifitech Tower but was forced out. Slumming outside the tower, he watched the unveiling of the uSphere and was surprised that the cyborg he had brought back was the future self of Plastique, whom along with the Key and Coil, was trying to break into Terrifitech. Before he could offer to join their heist, Terry was attacked by Terrific and was forced to give up the cyborg. Escaping, Terry offered his services to Key at the Wounded Duck, but after recognizing the owner, Cal Corcoran, as Tim Drake, he took his business elsewhere. Convincing the group they needed him, Key began to regret his decisions after watching Terrific turn the world on Terry. Coil and Key then tried to kill Terry, but were stopped by Plastique, who claimed her desire to work with Terry on the heist. * Upon being informed that a Batman figure tried to infiltrate his tower, Terrific began to grow paranoid. Eventually discovering the Batman to be a hobo slumming outside the tower, he tried to fight him. While Terrific lost the fight, he did recover the Batman's cyborg. Amazed, Terrific was surprised that it contained Nanotech Ebola, a cybernetic virus he had only theorized about. Trying to figure out the Batman's identity with a mysterious alien, Terrific, despite his own morals, exposed the figure and labeled him as a Multiversal alien. Troubled by his own actions, Terrific felt even worse upon realizing the cyborg to be made from Earth 0. After analyzing the Boom Spheres, Terrific was falsley placated as an Earth 2 alien by Terry Sloan. Experiencing the discrimination and segregation of other E2s, Terrific eventually reclaimed his identity, but with newfound understanding. '''The Help: ' * After accepting the title of Green Arrow from her brother, Emiko Queen took on Naomi Singh as her new partner, Dart. After weeks she finally met her brother again, who joined the Outsiders to assault Cadmus Island. When Oliver returned to Seattle, Deathstroke tried to kill him, but it was a ruse, as Magus faked Queen's death while also sending a distress signal to the superhero duo of Firestorm. When Deathstroke took a tracking device, Oliver sent Emiko to find Big Barda, disguised as Jane Kirby. After an initial meeting, Barda and Emiko considered their options after a month in Quebec where they fought Deathstroke and Fifty Sue. Escaping to Vancouver, Barda and Emiko met up with John Diggle where they revealed the plan to go to Cadmus Island and neutralize the growing threat of King Faraday. '''The Fall of Firestorm: * After receiving a distress signal from Oliver Queen, Jason Rusch attempted to get Ronnie Raymond to help him, but the latter's laziness let the two get late and lazy. After finally merging the two made it to Seattle to find Green Arrow dead amdist the rubble. With Ronnie slowly being overencumbered by guilt, he nearly got into a fistfight with Arsenal and refused to separate from Jason. After finally separating, they agreed to disband Firestorm. Jason started working with Dr. Yamazake, who was designing teleporters for the public. Ronnie started drinking heavily at the Wounded Duck and was evicted by Cal Corcoran, the owner. Jason and Ronnie were then warped to the Watchtower where they refused the request by the JLA that they make amends and be Firestorm again. Multiversal Hunters: * Grifter once again started to hunt Daemonites while using a recruit named Justin to try and find a way to eradicate them. Met by King Faraday, Cole was forced into becoming an agent of the GPA stationed at Cadmus Island. Partnered up with Deathstroke and Fifty Sue, the little girl quickly began to torture Cole, although they teamed up to find the invisible OMAC that attacked him. Meeting the Earth 2 version of Lana Lang, they were trapped in the Cadmus subbasement by Sue for three days. Eventually freed by Faraday, they were informed that because of glitches, Cadmus Island had been compromised. While Faraday believed it was from an outside intelligence, the prisoners broke free of their cells and Cole, controlled by an implant, attacked Slade and was neutralized by Sue. * Grifter's partner, Justin, then realized Cole was missing and fled their headquarters. Heading to Voodoo, the two agreed to team up to find Cole. Meanwhile, Faraday approached his niece, Mercy, who later contacted Voodoo and revealed the encounter she had. This got Voodoo to realize that Frank Rock was out to kill her and that Faraday had taken Cole. With this understanding, she began to put her Project Cadmus team together. * After Cole and Slade were pulled away by Faraday, Hawkgirl and Rita Loomis began to talk about Fifty Sue, Cole and their implants. They were then pleased at the return of Mr. Miracle, who had easily managed to bypass the OMAC Security System and revealed the truth of their implants. Despite believing himself to be safe, Miracle was unaware that Faraday was getting suspcious of his mannerisms. Red Tornado then had her eyes removed and in addition to the severing of her arms and legs, was placed hanging in front of a computer system while writhing in pain about her eyes. Hawkgirl was then sent to a Cadmus Laboratory to get her implant revised, before this could happen, however, the OMACs turned on the leading scientist and the Cadmus Island prison break started. Recovery: ' ' * Stormwatch, Earth’s first line of defence against aliens, was traversing through the Bleed when it was attacked by an unknown entity. Before the entire team could be wiped out, a distress call was sent out to SHADE. Father Time rerecruited Frankenstein, made him team up with Ray Palmer and Amethyst. Sending the crew through the Phantom Zone, they were attacked by Black Adam but managed to make it to the Carrier. Palmer then replaced an arm of Frankenstein with that of Hawkman, only for the winged guardian to wake up and heal. Unknown to them, they were being monitored by Father Time, who knew of the entity that defeated Stormwatch. While Palmer stayed aboard the Carrier, the rest of the group went to investigate a distress signal designed for Stormwatch members. Arriving at a strange planet where they were attacked by robots, the crew was defeated by the Engineer, sending SHADE Net offline. Placed in a holding cell, the Nth Metal began to change Frankenstein and give him visions of the End Future. Taken by the Engineer, she revealed that she had synthesized the conscience of Angela Spica, that they were actually on a battle station and that the being that destroyed the Carrier, and her new master, was none other than the Brainiac God. The Investigation: ' * After receiving a package with a number of items, Lois Lane found the items led her to the Wounded Duck, where she came to the conclusion that Cal Corcoran, the owner, used to be Red Robin. Approaching Cal, her claims were denied. Unknown to her, King Faraday was tailing her, only to be stopped by the Masked Superman. Getting another package, Lois was met by Cal's girlfriend, Madison Payne. Madison, curious by Lois' claims, went to the MAW to ask her father about them. There, Ethan Boyer was broken out of prison by Rampage, who was being hunted by Superman. While Cal and Madison got closer, Ethan tricked Rampage, setting her loose on Metropolis. When the Wounded Duck was robbed, Cal tracked down the thief to get back Madison's necklace. Lois continued to look into her package and saw visions of Cadmus Island. Seeking to tell Superman of these, she was almost killed by Rampage. Stormguard also started to track Boyer during this time. Eventually Rampage's rampage hit an apex in Metropolis and Superman, determined to take Rampage down, started fighting her in front of Lois. For the masked Superman, Rampage was too powerful, only temporarily neutralized when he used a lightning bolt to turn back into Billy Batson and stun Rampage. '''Strange Signals: ' * After arriving in Kansas and finding strange unnatural crop signals, two folks named Midge and Tommy pondered what to do. Remembering a past acquaintance with John Constantine, made during the Earth 2 War, they set about finding him. Summoning him, the two braced themselves for answers and were shocked when Constantine revealed that it was forshadowing for the end of the world. Despite this, Constantine agreed to help them try and stop the end. Later, in Southeast Asia, an exploration team found a strange temple made of gold covered with the same symbols that Midge found. The exploration team was then massacred by a cyborg which awoke from the temple. Aware of what occured in Asia, Constantine and Midge began to ponder who they could call for help while John began to figure it all out and temporarily separated himself from the group. The cyborg then travelled to a ship Madagascar where it continued it's slaughter. The ship then made it's way to the Horn of Africa where Constantine met up with Midge and Tommy. Realizing that the cyborg was making it's way towards an alien, Constantine quickly declared he would find the alien first. Making way to another town slaughtered by the cyborg, John, Tommy and Midge arrived at the very spot that Constantine claimed the alien would arrive. After waiting for a while, the alien, Kal-El, the original Superman, did arrive. Phase Two Definitive of the second phase was that parts began to converge, with several events going on to merge into one. Therefore, the second phase saw the future being altered on a larger level than had been done in the first phase. The most important part of the second phase was Terry finally homing in on Brother Eye, who had made himself visual and apparent on Cadmus Island. Therefore, as the stakes began to increase, the threat that was Brother Eye began to grow more and more powerful. Although not nearly on the level that it would be in thirty five years, Eye's return posed to be an ominious warning for bad things to come. However, just as in the previous phase, only The Heist and Survival, the latter due to an interaction with Terry in Phase One, were the only parts that affected and slowly began to drive the world away from the madness of the End Future. '''The Heist: *Terry, Key, Coil and Plastique all entered the tunnels below Terrifitech with the intentions of a succesful heist. As Terry tried to find the location of Brother Eye, Key and Coil stole the uSphere as Plastique began to look for her cyborg future self. When Terry got the info needed, he exposed Key and Coil while taking pity on Plastique and taking her with him. Later explaining her to the threat that Brother Eye posed, Terry allowed her to work with him despite potentially compromising the future. Realizing that Tim Drake could be a valuable ally, Terry began to investigate his apartment and was attacked by Batman. Faced with having to face his mentor in the latter's prime, Terry and Plastique barely managed to get away safely. *With Key and Coil held in Terrifitech's own personal cell, Terrifich, accompanied by his T-Spheres, went to confront the burglars. Terrific then demanded to know who it was that hired Key to recruit Coil to try and steal the uSphere. After getting acceptance from Coil, Key revealed it to be none other than Bruce Wayne. Later setting up a meeting with Wayne, Terrific and he met right when Wayne arrived. Attempting to start their meeting, Bruce, due to business with Firestorm, brushed him off, resulting in Terrific sending Key and Coil to tail him. Battle of Cadmus: ''' *When Barda, Emiko and Diggle arrived on Arrow Island, they met up with an alive Oliver Queen and Red Arrow. On Cadmus Island, Faraday watched the chaos and quickly realized the infiltrator to be Brother Eye. After Sue left to find Eye, Deathstroke and Lana were forced to fend themselves from an Eye-controlled-Power Girl. With Sue forcing Eye to a stalemate, she rescued Deathstroke and Lana before removing Cole's implant. The motley group then confronted Faraday and moved on to Sue's secret bunker. On Arrow Island, Barda and Red Arrow reaquainted themselves as Green Arrow revealed Brother Eye's deception in the Battle of Space. Voodoo, Mercy, Banger and Mash then tried to find Cole, only to be invited into a Cadmus office by Frank Rock as Justin began to hack into Project Cadmus. Told of their mission to kill Fifty Sue by Rock, the gang tried to accustom themselves to the idea. Being a New God, Mr. Miracle remained immune to Brother Eye's madness and freed Fury. In Sue's base, Cole found out Faraday's status as a metahuman, but they were unable to stop him from teleporting to Frank Rock and off the island. Deciding to try and free Cadmus Island, Sue again confronted Brother Eye and learned Slade to be playing both sides and the regret Rock and Faraday felt behind her very existance, this compelled her to head off to Rock's headquarters. Deciding to either recover or destroy a cache of metahuman DNA before they left the island, Slade wanted to make sure that Brother Eye could not create his own Fifty Sue. Eye himself was fascinated by Mr. Miracle and claimed to be the Anti-Life Equation. Just as Queen's army headed for Cadmus Island, Lois Lane parachuted there only to find Red Tornado, now refit with eyes. Faraday and Sue both met Rock around the same time, only to be interrupted by Voodoo. As such, the decision was made for Voodoo to not kill Sue, but instead incorporate the girl into her team and take out Brother Eye. '''Retribution: * Attempting to make contact with Frankenstein, Amethyst or Hawkman, Ray Palmer repeatedly failed. Confronted by one of the Storm Lords of the Shadow Cabinet, Ray was made the new leader of Stormwatch. Learning that Stormwatch was designed to stop the threat of the Brainiac God, Ray was shocked to learn that the Brainiac fought in the Battle of Earth was only an avatar. Engineer then woke up the Agents of SHADE she placed in stasis and delivered them straight to Brainiac who welcomed them to the Blood Moon. Almost right after, the Brainiac God was attacked by Ray, who shaved and returned to his role as the Atom, and a freed Black Adam. With Black Adam's allegiance, Atom took his team and the Engineer into the Nan-Knight while Adam provided a diversion to let them escape. Retreating, they were quickly joined by Adam only to learn an enraged Brainiac had sent his troops out after them. Pursued by hundreds of drones, Frankenstein teamed up with Black Adam to fight them off. Separated from Brainiac, the Engineer quickly regained control of her body, rekindled her relationship with Hawkman to Amethyst's chagrin and set out to repair the Carrier to let the group escape into the Bleed. However, without their navigational drive, upon going into the Bleed, the unorthodox team got lost in the Orrery of Worlds. Survival: *After recuperating, Billy Batson attempted to leave a stunned Lois and incapacitated Rampage. Forced unconscious by a waking Rampage, Billy and Lois were rescued by Stormguard, who also neutralized rampage. Returned to her office, Lois was confronted by Superman and tried to convince him to return to his identity of Shazam, after he refused, she publicly unveiled his identity. Affecting the world deeply, Cal Corcoran grew fearful Lois would do the same to him, confirmed his identity as Tim Drake to Lois and analyzed her package. Cal then told the truth about his former identity to Madison, although she broke up with him in frustration. Upon hearing Superman's truth, Dr. Yamazake grew resentful of superhumans and started get paranoid. Lois then tracked Billy down and after the latter took down Ibac, he turned into Shazam again for one night only before heading to the Wounded Duck for a drink. Still underage, he was evicted by Cal who found himself willing to forgive a now sober Ronnie Raymond. Ronnie then apologized to Madison and began to get along with her very well. Madison on the other hand refused to forgive Cal for his secrets. After completing their transporter, Jason's hesitancy to test it on a human placed Yamazake's suspicions on him. When Ronnie finally apologized to Jason and suggested they become Firestorm again, Jason refused and was unaware that Yamazake was spying on him. Yamazake subtley revealed his knowledge of Jason's secret identity when firing him and kidnapped Madison, due to her father's war actions. After getting texts beckoning them to a local zoo, Ronnie and Jason were met by an angry Batman who told them of Green Arrow's ploy and ordered them to become Firestorm again. Aware of Madison's disappearance, Cal headed off to Lois to see if she knew anything, while also convincing her to head to the coordinates given to her by Green Arrow. Returning to New York, Cal confronted Ronnie on her disappearance and they headed off to see if Jason knew anything. Jason, in an attempt to try and apologize to Yamazake, unwittingly discovered the professor's newfound insanity. As the stakes started to rise, Yamazake began to prepare Madison for teleportation. Finding Cadmus secruity blocking their way to the university, Cal and Ronnie began to fight their way in as Jason started to make his way to the lab. 'Return: ' *Going with Kal-El to his farm, Constantine tried to explain to him the need for the true Superman, but was just brushed off. After talking about the Earth 2 War, he did manage to get the Kryptonian's interest by revealing Brainiac's upcoming arrival. Heading off to confront Brainiac's cyborg drone, Kal-El left John alone in the village with Tommy and Midge for days. Getting into an argument with Tommy, John was shocked to see the cyborg to have found them first, with it's first course of action being to kill Tommy. The cyborg then began to torture Midge, nearly killing her before Kal-El returned to attack the cyborg. Battling the cyborg, Kal began to learn the history of the true Brainiac from Constantine. Defeating the cyborg with ease, Kal learned from Constantine that it was only testing his abilities and had actually teleported away. Claiming that he had defeated Brainiac in the Battle of Earth, Constantine confirmed this, but went on to state that it was the Brainiac God who was arriving this time. Revealing the cyborg could only have gone to one of seven teleportation sites, Constantine offered to take a reluctant Kal to them. Aftermath Due to the events of Futures End, the various cities of ended timelines and universes were pertubed in their glass domes within the Blood Moon. Allowing the Brainiac God to create an experiment, called Convergence, he finally decided to see what would occur if they finally met. All of this resulted in the creation of a supervillain stronger than the Brainiac God, Darkseid or the Anti-Monitor: Telos. Category:Conflicts